I am new to the whole audio world so forgive me for my stupidity. I recently bought some axiom m80's and I hooked them up to a technics sa-424 1981 4ohm 2x50watt RMS receive with 12 gauge wire.

I proceeded to play music of my computer to the receiver at medium levels in my 12x14 room where the speakers are placed about 1 meter apart on each side from me.

I didn't hear any weird popping noises or anything odd coming from the speakers but I'm afraid I may have damaged them after using my old receiver. Is there any way I can test my M80's to make sure I didn't damage them? Hopefully I didn't clip the speakers at the level I was playing them at.

Any insight would be appreciated. And yes I have a 500 watt emotiva coming to replace the receiver.

If you didn't hear anything odd, why do you think you damaged the speakers?

It isn't speakers that "clip", but an amplifier that doesn't have enough power to reproduce the signal at the level being requested. More simply, if you turn the volume up too loud, and the receiver/amp can't deliver what you're asking, then you may experience clipping.

Hard enough clipping for long enough time will end up damaging speakers. But unless you did something like that, there's little to be worried about.

Yes, you should be able to play the M80s quite loud in your small room using the Technics amp without worrying about clipping the amplifier's output. Keep in mind that "quite loud" subjectively is about 85 dB SPL at your listening seat. "Very loud" would be 95 dB SPL. So if your Technics needed to produce 1 to 4 watts to produce 85 dB, then peaks of 95 dB would need ten times the power at 85 dB, so about 10 to 40 watts, which is still within the output capabilities of the vintage Technics. (Power demands are logarithmic in nature, so doubling the amplifier power only produces a "slightly louder" increase of 3 dB. "Twice as loud" subjectively needs 10 times as much amplifier power.

No need to unhook your speakers. Just don't crank up the Technics past the "very loud" level and you'll be fine.